Page 295 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 7 March 2007
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Consistent with the government’s response to the coroner’s report into the 2003 Canberra firestorm, the strategic bushfire management plan is to be reviewed, with territory and municipal services developing subregional management plans. These plans will describe a desired pattern of mosaic burning across the subregion to achieve fire prevention and ecosystem management objectives for each discrete area.
I turn to Mr Pratt’s next proposed amendment, which is about a new section 74A for the setting of bushfire breaks. Yes, there is that term again: bushfire breaks. Again, this amendment and its proposed approach is a simplistic one and not one the government will support. The key reason is that it does not consider an appropriate level of risk analysis. Mr Pratt is trying to set a one-size-fits-all approach, rather than doing what should be done, which is detailed risk assessment to provide for appropriate risk management.
The current strategic bushfire management plan identifies risks based on vegetation type, aspect, climatological factors and bushfire spread analysis to determine vulnerability classes and the location and size of asset protection zones. The plan also identifies the standards to which these areas are to be treated. The proposal put forward by Mr Pratt only considers the urban interface and totally ignores the implications of fire management in remote and rural areas. It demonstrates a significant lack of understanding of bushfire risk and behaviour.
I now turn to Mr Pratt’s proposed new section 78, concerning bushfire operational plans. The approach proposed by this amendment would result in myriad overlapping and potentially conflicting operational plans and would certainly result in a bureaucratic mess—as simple as that: a bureaucratic mess. To illustrate, on Black Mountain we would have, if Mr Pratt had his way, a separate plan for the surrounding suburbs, one for the critical infrastructure and one for the areas from which bushfire would approach, mostly identifying the same issues. Under this proposed new section, Mr Pratt proposes that warning systems and methods, evacuation plans and locations of emergency infrastructure be included in each individual bushfire operational plan. We would have potentially five plans just for the one area.
The vulnerability of suburbs and villages has been assessed, and appropriate prevention strategies and actions are already in place. An integrated approach to warnings and evacuations has been implemented through the all-hazards warning system, and the identification of firefighting infrastructure, such as water points, has occurred and is available to our emergency services in map and electronic form.
As opposed to the member’s proposal, which creates myriad separate documents and plans, we adopt as a government an integrated approach to bushfire management that encompasses all elements of prevention, preparedness and response. Why have five plans for one area, Mr Pratt? That is one of the answers you need to give to members today. Why do you want to create five separate documents just for one little part of the ACT? What a bureaucratic mess you would be getting us into.
Land managers and occupiers currently prepare bushfire operational plans in relation to the factors under their control and jurisdiction. To place the responsibility for
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